


Perchance to Dream

by Whumpdeedoo



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Broken Bones, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt Jake Peralta, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 08:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17525129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whumpdeedoo/pseuds/Whumpdeedoo
Summary: Jake doesn't leave the monsters behind in prison.





	Perchance to Dream

_Jake was alone._

_Jake was blind._

_The walls were close enough to squeeze the air out of the room, out of his lungs._

_He banged his fist against one of them. "Help!" he wheezed. "Please, somebody, help!" He grasped for a door, a handle, anything, but was met only with unforgiving cement. "Let me out!"_

_Stifling. Static. Silent._

_"Please," he whimpered. "Let me out."_

_A single eye opened in the wall, cement eyelids crunching._

_"Why would anyone let you out?" it said._

_The rest of his father's face materialized. "I didn't want you. Why would anyone else?"_

_The face morphed into his mother's. "You always were such a disappointment," she said._

_Now it was Amy. "You'll rot in here." She melted back into the dark._

_Jake pulled himself to his feet, scrabbling at the walls despite torn hands. "Amy, wait!" he cried. "Amy!"_

_She was gone. The walls were closing in, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe –_

Jake awoke, and he couldn't breathe.

He bolted upright and struggled to pull in enough air. He was hyperventilating. Just a nightmare. Just another nightmare, but he couldn't seem to stop.

Amy stirred. "Jake?" she murmured.

Low, desperate gasps. Jake's hands clenched spasmodically at the sheets.

She rested a hand on his chest, feeling his heart pound, and another on his cheek, turning his head towards her. "Look at me." Her eyes were liquid in the light that seeped through the window blinds. Her brow furrowed. "You're having a panic attack," she said evenly. "You have to calm down or you're going to pass out. Breathe with me, okay?" She took his hand and flattened his palm to her chest. "In and out, easy does it." She breathed deeply and spoke softly, and Jake slowly, slowly calmed.

With a great sigh, he leaned to rest his head on her shoulder. She put her arm around him and gave him a light squeeze.

"Nightmare?"

Jake hummed.

"Want to talk about it?"

He shook his head.

"Jake, I'm worried. That departmentally-mandated therapist doesn't seem to be helping. I mean, is she?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

She worried her lip. "I really think we need to try something else."

"What, like get a different therapist?"

"Maybe. I know you don't want to, but you should consider talking to someone, at least. It doesn't have to be me, or a professional. Just… someone. Please, Jake?"

He lifted his head to meet her eyes. Her thumb moved soothingly on his arm.

"Okay."

Amy smiled gently and placed a kiss on his forehead before cuddling back into the bedding. She lightly pulled him down, wrapping herself around him. In minutes, her breathing was deep and even.

Jake stared at the ceiling until it brightened with dawn.

(He drinks six cups of coffee and downs advil that day, but his headache doesn't care. He can't focus; letters keep blurring. "Oh my god you look terrible," Gina says gleefully. He can feel the gazes of the others, a weight on his neck, pushing his head lower. The Captain calls him to his office to give him a big assignment. His expression is intent when he asks, "Are you sure you're up for this, Jake?"

"Of course, Captain," Jake says, and Holt sighs.)

* * *

_Jake was inches from a pale face and glassy stare. He yelped and scurried away until his back met cold metal bars. His stomach sank through the floor._

_It was Miguel._

_He hung, a sheet noose around his throat, his neck bent sickeningly. Jake yanked on the door._

_"It's no use."_

_Jake turned._

_Miguel's sightless eyes were fixed on him. "There's no way out of here, except my way."_

_Suddenly Miguel was on the ground. His neck slowly, excruciatingly, crunched back into place. "It was you cops that put me in here. It's your fault!"_

_"No!"_

_"It's your fault!" Miguel stepped towards him. Jake struggled with the bars. As Miguel stumbled nearer, Jake watched him deteriorate: his skin dried and cracked, stretched tight over sunken, hollowed body. His flesh began to rot; parts peeled off and slopped onto the floor. A nauseating scent permeated the cell. His eyes became dark, mangled sockets glistening with blood blackened by age._

_"Your fault!" he continued to cry even as his lips decayed._

_By the time Miguel reached him, the hands that wrapped around his neck were only bone._

Jake awoke silent.

His heart clamored.

He rubbed at his neck, the phantom sensation of being strangled already fading. He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes as though to wipe away the horrors, dragging them down his face, feeling the scratch of stubble. He heaved a shaking breath and slowly exhaled. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

The crack on the ceiling was gone. Amy had fixed it while he was away. She couldn't bear to look at it, she'd said. He looked at her, serene face haloed by raven hair, and smiled. Carefully extracting himself from the sheets, he placed a light kiss on her forehead and padded out of the room.

Fifteen minutes before Amy's first alarm, Jake slips back into bed, eyes and mind burning.

("Any nightmares?" Amy asks.

"None," Jake says.

She smiles sadly. "Okay.")

He worked late that night. The glances the others sent him as they filed out fell heavy on his back.

"Are you almost ready to head home?" Amy asked anxiously.

"Yeah, just a minute," Jake rasped. He shivered, hunching deeper into his clothing.

Rosa paused in her stride to the door. "Hey Jake. Drinks at Shaw's?" She looked paler than she used to. Concealer lay thick under her eyes.

"Oh, sorry, but Amy and I-"

"Go."

Jake raised his eyebrows, turning to look at Amy. "You sure?"

She nodded. "And eat, please. If not at Shaw's then the leftovers." Talk to someone, her eyes reminded him.

"Alright. See you tonight." They exchanged a quick peck. "One sec, Rosa."

When no one is watching, he slips a file into his bag.

At Shaw's, they drank in silence.

When he reached a subway station to take a train home, she caught his bicep. Her throat worked. They hung there, in the cool night air and sickly streetlight glow, until she squeezed his arm and released.

"Good night, Jake," she said hoarsely.

"Night," he replied, and descended into the harsh light of the station.

Amy was sleeping when he got home. She'd left some food on the counter. He put it back into the fridge. The world was slowly turning. He wasn't entirely sure where his feet were. He was too drunk to work, but he pulled out the file anyway. He struggled to focus on the words until they were drowned in tears.

* * *

Jake doesn't sleep anymore.

He stumbles around in a barely-functional haze. Minutes and hours bleed together. A spike goes through his temples, behind his eyes, under which hang bags like funeral curtains. The faces around him grow more and more concerned. He constantly parrots "I'm fine." His layers hide how his body wanes from everyone but Amy. His eyes slide closed every minute. Visions of Caleb hunched over tiny, mangled bodies, face painted with gore, flesh beneath his fingernails, lunging to sink his teeth into Jake lay behind them. He jolts awake a Caesar, covered in stab wounds, beaten and bloodied, feeling the rough hands of inmates and guards alike, the words "I will watch you bleed out in the dirt" echoing.

He needs to work. The case. He needs to finish the case. It's important. Holt is counting on him. His body begs, screams for rest but nightmares rattle like marbles in his head.

"Jake, you've got to be coming down with something."

"Hm?" Jake lifted his head too fast, and blackness encroached on the edges of his vision. He blinked rapidly, like his rabbit pulse. "Oh, I'm fine."

Amy pressed a hand to his forehead again. "You're definitely warmer."

"Okay, firstly, Amy Santiago should know better than to think that an accurate assessment of temperature," she smiled a bit, "and secondly, it's nothing. I'm fine."

"You haven't been sleeping. You haven't been eating. You're literally shaking."

Jake stowed his betraying hands in his pockets.

"Ugh, Jake, this is ridiculous!" she snapped. "You look like you're about to drop dead! You're the most obviously not fine person on the fucking planet!" She dug her fingers into her eyes, sighing harshly.

"Ames-"

"Tell me when you come to your senses and I'll take you home. If you tried driving right now you'd probably kill yourself," she bit, and marched off.

* * *

"Jake?"

He snapped to attention. "Yeah?"

"Did you hear me?"

He blinked. "Yeah."

"You good?"

"Yeah."

Rosa sighed. "I'll take lead on this one, okay?"

Jake felt himself flush, but nodded.

Their suspect answered the door, took one look at their badges, and sprinted to the fire escape. In an instant, Rosa was after him, leaping through the window and shouting cut him off, he's headed for the alley behind the building! Jittery with adrenaline, Jake ran down the stairs and screeched through the front door. Stars danced in his vision, he could feel the weakness of his legs, but he ran to the mouth of the alley where Rosa would herd the suspect. A wave of heat and nausea was rising, the world was greying, and as the suspect came careening around a corner and Rosa shouted to stop him he found he could not move. The suspect tackled him to the ground, fireworks burst as his head slammed into the ground, he felt something crack in his chest with a hot streak of pain and everything was dark.

"-ake? Jake!"

Jake groaned. His head throbbed in time with his chest with more vigor than he deemed appropriate. Breathing was sharp and unforgiving. Voices were garbled like a faulty radio. He slit his eyes open and slammed them shut; the world was obscenely bright.

"Okay, you're alive. Maybe bleeding into your skull, but alive."

"Rosa?" he tried to ask and mostly failed. He brought a hand to the back of his head and winced when it met tender, inflamed skin. His fingers came away bloody. He was probably hallucinating when he saw traces of concern in her normally stony expression.

"Head."

"Yeah. Medics on their way. Anything else?"

"Ribs." Rosa frowned. She unzipped his hoodie, unbuttoned his flannel, and pulled up his shirt, making pain flare white in his view. He struggled to catch his breath.

He tried to pick up his head to look down at his torso. A strangled moan escaped him, and he gingerly put his head back down on what he realized was Rosa's jacket.

"Don't do that, dumbass."

"Love you too," he managed. "Bleeding on your jacket."

"Yeah, well, it's not my nice jacket. It already had bloodstains on it." She prodded at his ribs and he felt something shift, bone grinding agonizingly against bone. He clenched his teeth against the cry trying to escape.

"Definitely at least one broken."

"Yeah, I figured," he gasped.

"You concussed? What day is it? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Jake struggled to think. "Uh… Thursday? Three?"

Rosa pursed her lips. "Wrong on both counts. Though who knows if that even means anything, given the state you've been in lately." She squinted, leaning in closer. "Different-sized pupils, though, definitely does mean something. Looks like a concussion to me.

"Oh goodie." He tried for dry. He could not pull off dry even on a good day. "Suspect?"

"Got him. No thanks to you."

Jake closed his eyes.

Rosa sighed again. "Just wait 'til the medics get here," she said, settling onto the ground beside him. He focused on his hand in hers, solid amongst the pain and shame and fear and all-consuming weariness. She holds it until they take him away.

* * *

When he wakes, he's in a hospital.

"Oh good, you're awake. The doctors were starting to think you were in a coma." Amy was tired, and frazzled, and so very relieved. She pressed the nurse call button by his shoulder.

Jake shifted and pain shot like lightning through his head down to his ribs. Amy held his hand, rubbing soothing circles with her thumb as he rode it out, panting.

"Yeah, you've got one hell of a concussion and two broken ribs. Exhaustion, malnourishment and a fever did not help matters." She gave him a searing look before pinching the bridge of her nose. "Anyhow, they won't put you on meds until they know your brain isn't mush. Oh, here's the nurse."

She came in, asked some questions in a low voice, and administered something in his IV. Soon, the pain started to cloud over, his brain misting. His eyes were heavy, and Amy was smiling at him, and she had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was unkempt and she was radiant, and she was telling him to rest, so he does.

He drifted in and out for a while, Amy there each time he found his way to consciousness, gently holding his hand. He woke up and the room was filled with blushing evening light, and he still felt a bit fuzzy but he thought he was really up this time.

"Amy?"

She put down her book. "I'm here."

"I'm sorry," he said.

She bit her lip. "It doesn't matter right now, you're safe, you're going to be alright. Just rest."

"No, I, I have to explain."

She swallowed. When she looked back up at him her eyes were shining, but there was fire in them.

"Okay," she said. "then explain. Why? Rosa said you looked like you were about to faint before the guy ever touched you! You're clearly not okay and you won't talk to me. You can't go on like this, Jake. I can't go on like this. So what exactly is going on?"

A lump formed in his throat. He wasn't sure he'd even be able to speak. "I…" It came out as a hoarse whisper and he cleared his throat. "I, uh, haven't been able to sleep." He couldn't meet her eyes.

"Nightmares?" she asked carefully.

He nodded. Her grip on his hand tightened. "I just, ah, can't seem to get it out of my head, or, or get over it. I just can't stop panicking. I keep seeing these… It was so terrifying, Ames, I can't even begin to tell you…" His voice broke. His eyes burned. "I know it's dumb, and childish…"

"No." Amy said it so fiercely that Jake looked up at her in surprise.

"Listen to me, Jake." She held his gaze in a vice. "Nothing that upsets you is ever dumb, or childish. You hear me? Nothing that upsets you like this is dumb or childish and you shouldn't be afraid to share it with me because you think so. Certainly, nightmares about your wrongful imprisonment aren't dumb, and I will fight anyone who thinks otherwise." Jake chuckled wetly. Her intense expression started to crack. "Got it, Jake? I will fight them for you." She attempted to keep her face serious.

"How chivalrous," Jake giggled.

"I take defending your honor very seriously," she said solemnly.

They stared at each other for a moment before bursting into teary laughter.

"Ow, ow, ow!" Jake clutched at his side, trying to catch his breath. "My ribs have been broken enough times you'd think I would know not to laugh." The smile faded. "I'm sorry, Ames."

"I know," she said, a rueful twist to her lips.

"No, really. We're supposed to be honest with each other, and I royally screwed that up."

"Yeah, you did. It wasn't cute." She sighed as he looked down in shame. "I know your instinct is to hold things in, but it could've gotten you killed. We're supposed to support each other, and be transparent for each other. Promise me, Jake," her words held him fast, "promise me you'll tell me when something's wrong."

He nodded resolutely. "I promise."

Her face remained severe. "Now say, 'Amy was right and is the clearly superior detective'."

He barked a surprised laugh. "You were right."

She cocked an eyebrow, but her façade was crumbling. "And?"

"Never," he said, tossing his head dramatically. "Ow. Nope. Bad idea, very bad idea."

"Aw, are you okay babe?" she asked, saccharine.

"Yeah, I just-"

"Say it!" she snapped. Jake jumped.

"Never!"

"I will only forgive you if you say it!"

"Well I guess you'll just have to dump me, babe!"

"I'll hide your Die Hard DVDs!"

"Nice try, I own all of them on Amazon!"

"I'll change the Amazon password!"

"I'll pirate them online!"

"I'll hide your laptop!"

"Charles will give me his!"

The sound of a clearing throat came from the door, and Amy cut off her retort. "Captain!" Her hands fluttered by her disheveled hair and clothing, trying to make herself more presentable and only succeeding in making herself anxious. Jake chuckled and took both her hands, planting a kiss on one.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

"Of course not, sir!"

Holt turned to Jake. "I'm glad to see you awake."

"Thank you, sir. Good to be awake."

"The team wanted to speak with you. I trust that is alright? Do you feel well enough to see them? Detective Diaz has already intimidated a nurse into letting them all come in at once."

Jake grinned. "Yeah, I'd love to see them!"

Holt strode wordlessly into the room, trailing Rosa, Gina, Terry, and Boyle. After the appropriate jokes and expressions of pleasure at Jake's health, the squad sobered. It took significantly longer to peel a near-hysterical Boyle off of Jake, who repeatedly proclaimed that he would have killed himself had Jake died.

"Jake, we… we actually wanted to speak to you about what's been going on the past few weeks," Terry ventured, once Boyle was calmed.

"Oh, no."

"Sweetie, do you remember what you looked like in middle school?" Gina said. "I do. Your eighth grade photo has been my lock screen for thirteen years. It's hilarious. The braces, the hair, the acne." She kissed her fingertips. "Perfection."

"Gina," Holt said.

"Yes, yes. What I'm saying is, that awkward, spotty kid is Channing Tatum compared to what you've looked like the past few weeks. I've seen you look healthier after several-day benders. I was half convinced you were actually dead."

Terry cut in. "What she means to say is, you clearly haven't been taking care of yourself since your release. We've been worried."

"Thanks, guys, but it's really-"

"It's not okay," Rosa said. "You shouldn't be doing that to yourself. If you pull that shit and make me catch the perp by myself again, I will end you. And," she seemed to wrestle with the words, "we're all here for you."

"Aw, guys," Jake was genuinely touched. "That really means a lot."

"No, Jake," Boyle sniffled, "you mean a lot. You're the best person who's ever lived, and," his eyes welled again, "we just love you so much, and-"

"Okay, buddy," Jake said, patting his shoulder comfortingly. "Yup. That's it. It's okay. I'm fine, it's all good."

Boyle set his jaw and nodded bravely, still teary. The room let out a collective breath of relief.

"Bottom line is, you shouldn't let yourself get like this. You have so many people who care about you, and will listen to you and support you. Try and remember that, okay?" Terry concluded.

Jake nodded. "Thank you. All of you.

Terry clapped a hand to his shoulder. "Okay. We'll leave you to rest up. Right, Gina?" he said, pointed.

"Yes, I'm coming, whatever," she flounced out after the rest with a "Glad you aren't dead, loser," leaving only Holt and Amy.

"I think I'll step out for a minute too," Amy said.

Holt strode over to Jake's bedside, standing silently. Jake could only stand it for a few seconds.

"Yes, sir?"

"You've been exceedingly foolish."

Jake hung his head. "Yes, sir."

"Your complete disregard for your own well-being almost got you killed. It endangered both yourself and Detective Diaz."

Jake let the reprimand come in silence.

"Part of being an effective officer is knowing your own limits. You cannot work effectively or have your partner's back if you are in poor health. I asked if you were up to the assignment. You told me you were, when clearly you were not. You took on what was beyond your capacity at the time. You ignored your own health in some misguided attempt to work through your difficulties. To think you could maintain working as you have been is absurd. Your actions have compromised both yourself and the precinct as a whole. I expect better from you."

Jake swallowed harshly. "Understood, sir. I'm sorry. I'll do better."

He braved looking up. Holt's face was soft.

"I've been worried. I'm glad to see you're alright."

"Thank you, sir."

Holt placed a hand on Jake's arm. "You have a family here that loves you, myself included. Try not to forget it, son."

"I'll try," Jake said, voice catching, eyes shining, lips curving. Holt smiled as he left the room.

When Amy reentered with a coffee, Jake's eyelids were heavy. She smiled lightly, and kissed his forehead. She was so warm.

"Sleep, Jake," she said.

And as the fading light blued, Jake slept.


End file.
